Hanukkah Haven
by Stydealized
Summary: Just a little one-shot/drabble for the holidays! We see so many stories about Christmas on here, but what about Hanukkah? Let's let this 8-day Jewish holiday get the spotlight this time!


**Just a little drabble(?) for Christmas/Hanukkah! Alix is determined to lift Nathanael's holiday blues, one way or another. This is during the time Chloe's Queen Bee, but before Rena Rouge and Carapace come into the picture. No ships this time. I didn't take as much time into this one as I normally would because... I wanted to get this out soon.**

 **Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah for all!**

 **I myself celebrate Christmas!**

 **Miraculous Ladybug belongs to Thomas Astruc.**

* * *

"Hey, Marinette! The annual skating rink in the park's back!" Alya pulled up the article on her phone as the two girls sat together before class. In the park right next to Marinette's home, it was a winter tradition to create a temporary skating rink for everyone to enjoy.

"Really?" Marinette perked up at that. For years, she'd been skating with her family and friends on that very ice.

"Yeah, and this time they're serving hot chocolate and goodies too!"

"Wow! Do you wanna go after school today?"

"Sure girl, I'll invite Nino along too! And who knows... _Adrien_ may come along with us too!" Alya nudged her friend's arm, while her face became as pink as her pants.

"B-but, we don't even know if h-he likes skating!"

"Girl, there's no harm in asking!"

"But-"

And we'll leave these two besties to argue about whether they're gonna drag a hunky model onto the ice or not.

 _(In the end, Marinette chickened out, leaving Alya to ask Nino, who in turn, managed to convince Adrien to come with them. So... it all worked out.)_

Meanwhile, after school, a trio of girls were making already their way down to the skating rink, when one spotted her best friend out of the corner of her eye, walking home in the snow.

He had been looking pretty mopey in class this week, but she hadn't had a proper chance to talk to him. He either left really early or she just couldn't find him.

Nathanael was right there; if Alix went to the rink without talking to him and she couldn't find him again, she'd so regret it.

"Jules? Rose? Can you guys just go on ahead without me?"

Juleka raised a eyebrow at this. "Why? Did something happen?"

"Yeah! If there's something you need to do today, we don't need to-"

"No! It's not like that." It wasn't that she didn't want them around, but usually, Nath would open up easier if she was by herself. "Don't worry, I'll be right there. Just save me some peppermint shavings, 'kay?" She waved them off, not wanting to spoil their fun because of her sake.

"Alright, Alix!"

"See ya."

The goth and cutesy duo left the tomboy to her own devices, Rose skipping happily and her hand in Juleka's. First thing she did was make a beeline straight for the red-head.

"Hey, Nathanael!" The short boy almost slipped on a patch of ice, nearly losing his vice-like grip on his precious sketchbook in the process.

"Geez! Alix, don't scare me like that!" He whipped right around and reprimanded her, but it didn't seem to have much effect. Maybe it was the over-sized beanie on his head that fell over one side of his head or the puffy winter jacket that did it...

But Alix wasn't listening. "Nath... is something wrong? You didn't look like yourself today."

"No, no. Everything's... fine!" Nathanael lied through his teeth. No need to get her involved in something that didn't concern her...

Alix frowned, her arms crossing. "No, it's _not_. There's _something_ bugging you, I just know it! You may as well just confess right now."

The redhead stayed silent, but when her resolve refused to let go, he let out a sigh that came out visible in the frosty air.

"I guess... it's just hard..." His turquoise eyes darted to the ground, avoiding her gaze.

"Go on." Alix encouraged her best friend to keep going.

"This is the first Hanukkah Mom and I are celebrating without Dad." He spat the rest of the sentence out without any hesitation.

Alix suddenly felt a stab of sympathy for her friend. She didn't know much about the event, but as far as the news could tell, he was killed in a car accident last year sometime in the middle of June. Nathanael was really close to his father, being an artist just like his son and when he was younger, he'd watch his dad draw for hours.

For days afterwards, he was pretty much unresponsive to anyone, even his mother. Stuck in his own world to try and move on from his father's death.

He seemed to have cheered up, long before school, but it still struck a tentative chord whenever anyone would bring something up that reminded him of the traumatic day.

"Oh... I'm sorry about that."

"No need." He shrugged. "It's nothing you need to worry about. Besides... you have Christmas to look forward to. So don't worry about me."

The fake smile he gave her made Alix feel sick to her stomach. He was doing it again.

One of Nath's biggest problems... whenever he had a big problem in his life, he had a tendency to push his feelings down deep, act like everything was fine and let it stew until he felt a lot worse about it. Only if his friends meddled in said problem, would they any chance of helping him work it out. It was probably due to the fact he thought about other's feelings more than himself. Which also led to a serious lack of self-esteem.

A loud beeping came from his watch, from the alarm built into it. "I'll see you when I get back. I gotta go." He jogged off, bag swinging back and forth with the motion.

Alix only stared after her friend, not looking away once he'd completely disappeared around the block. "Yeah... see ya."

She turned herself around and stiffly forced towards the skating rink in the opposite direction, snow crunching like chips under her feet. Her mind screamed at her to run back to him, to tell him things were gonna be okay, but her body didn't relent.

It was obvious that Nathanael had the winter blues, but knowing the introvert he was, it would be a challenge to get him back into the holiday spirit.

How could she cheer him up when he got back? There was obviously enough time to get something ready, seeing as he was gone for four days and would be back on Friday, the day before the Winter Break. The day before Winter Break would also be the last day of Hanukkah.

(His mother had a conference to go to in New York City outside of Paris and decided to take him with her, as long as he kept up with his homework during said trip. Why? A quantity of amazing art galleries were in New York...)

 _'Think, Alix, think...'_

He was the only one in the class who celebrated Hanukkah, yet he always went along with the Christmas parties everyone else celebrated without fuss. It didn't seem fair... Personally, she herself wasn't extremely religious, but still respected her friend's beliefs.

Her blue eyes seemed to shine as a rare well-thought out plan folded together in her head. She stopped in her tracks and her fingers snapped once eagerly as the pieces fell into place.

"That's it! Now..." She placed a finger to her chin in thought. "How to get the rest of the class on board..."

* * *

Next Monday rolled around quickly and Christmas break was fast approaching. That meant a very special tradition familiar to College Françoise-Dupont.

Ms. Bustier started off the day with, "So, class. The deadline for our annual Christmas room-decorating competition is coming up, so we need ideas! Would anyone like to contribute?"

"Let's go all out! Red and green everywhere!" Kim pumped his fist in the air, hyped. They had always come in second to another classroom, but this year. This year they were gonna take home the gold! "We're winning this thing this year!"

"Poinsettia wreaths!" Rose squealed. Flowers were her specialty, after all.

"May I suggest using fake snow?" Max pitched in with his own idea. "When needing to decide between Christmas scenery, fake snow is usually favoured by the majority because of its 'authenticity'."

The chatter was increasing in head-splitting volume with more ideas and Ms. Bustier already had her hand extended towards the door to take her usual aspirin when a shrill, high-pitched sound broke the background noise.

Alix was standing on her desk with two fingers in her mouth and whistling to get attention. Everyone was silent and at least a dozen pairs of eyes trained themselves on her.

"Actually, miss," Alix grinned. The timing of this whole ordeal was _perfect_. "I have a special idea for this year."

"Oh, really? Care to elaborate, Ms. Kubdel?" Needless to say, she was significantly easier to handle (and hear coherently) than a bunch of noisy teenagers at once.

And so the pinkette did.

Everyone was for it, even Chloe for _some_ reason. But Alix wasn't questioning it any time soon. The less trouble it took the blonde to go along with it, the better.

Nathanael was gonna have quite a surprise when he got back.

* * *

A frigid rush of air hit Nathanael in the face, blood rushing to his cheeks in hopes to warm them up as he stepped out of his mother's car, having returned yesterday night from New York.

"Thanks for driving me today, Mom!" He waved goodbye to her, she returning the wave before she drove off, back to work.

As he made his way up the frozen steps to his classroom, he heard Christmas carols playing from inside and festive chatter from the other classrooms. But his room's door was void of any decorations, there was no sign of music or lights from the inside and it was dead silent inside.

Had they all gotten out a day early? No... couldn't have.

When his gloved hand reached to the doorknob and it turned easily, he pushed it open to see what Christmas themes the class had come up with in his absence. Not like he ever contributed much in the past years.

But instead of red, white and green flooding his sights, his eyes widened to three much different colours.

 _'Blue... silver... and white... This is-"_

"Happy Hanukkah, Nathanael!" A chorus of voices made him jump and to his amazement, everyone leapt out of their hiding places and was decked out in the same tri-colour palette as the room.

"What the... what's all this?" As he looked around the room, he noticed a Hanukkah bush replaced the usual Christmas tree, a menorah on the teacher's desk and dangling from the ceiling were tiny silver David's stars chains.

"Alix thought that since you've celebrated Christmas with us for years without objection," Marinette stepped forward to explain what was occurring to the confused tomato. "And that you've been feeling especially down since this is the first year you've been celebrating Hanukkah without your father, this was the least we could do."

The bluenette was wearing a cute dark blue tunic with silver stars, a pleated white skirt with dark blue trim and white flats with silver buckles.

"...Alix?" Through the mess of blue, silver and white, the pink-haired shortie emerged. She had a plain blue t-shirt on with white shorts and grey tights, but she kept her normal heelies and cap.

"Yeah, I know it's a little late, but-" The air was forced out of her lungs as Nath gave her a giant hug. Bone-crushing for his standards.

"T-Thank you, Alix. This means so much to me..." His voice was shaky, as if holding back tears. He probably was, being so touched that she'd do this.

"It's nothing, dude. That's what best friends are for, right?"

The pressure on her chest released as he let her go and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. But these were far from sad.

He wiped away the bits of moisture at the edges of his eyes and smiled. A real one.

"Yeah, you're right."

"Well, now that all the waterworks are over, let's party, dudes!" Nino yanked out his music player and put on some music. Non-Christmas, of course, but traditional Jewish carols with a few soundtracks mixed into the playlist.

Needless to say, everyone enjoyed the party. Marinette had baked traditional Hanukkah foods, such as latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly donuts), as well as other Jewish foods, and though there were other activities to choose from, most of his classmates found themselves enjoying the traditional dreidel game. (Lila and Rose kept eating the chocolate coins, when no one was looking.)

As for Nathanael...

He may not have shown it, but he was having the most fun out of everyone. He hadn't minded going along with the class's Christmas parties for years, but...

For once, it was nice to have a change of pace.

Especially knowing that all of this was just for him.

Just went to show that people really did care.

"Liking the party, Nath?" Alix leapt onto the desk he was sitting on and crossed her legs.

"Yeah... I never guessed you guys ever would do this in a million years."

She gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder. "We do care for you, you dork. We'd love to help you when you have problems, but you just have to learn to let people in."

"...I'll try harder. But _no_ promises."

"Good enough."

 _(A day later, Alix literally dragged him to the skating rink and tried to teach him to skate. Turns out tomatoes and ice don't mix. One word. Bruises. And lots of 'em.)_

* * *

 **I think I botched Max's speaking part...**

 **But OMG, this feels so amateurish...**


End file.
